Grass tops field at Panther Invitational

Red Oak’s Emmanuel Grass won top honors and the Tigers finished third in the team standings at the Panther Invitational Cross Country meet at Creston’s McKinley Park last Tuesday.
In a rare road race due to wet conditions, the host Panthers won the boys team title with a score of 39. Nodaway Valley was second with 47 points.
Grass topped the boys field with a time of 16:09, 25 seconds better than runner-up Ryder Baird of Creston.
Hayden Hietbrink finished third with a time of 16:41 and Osiel Pedersen was eighth in 17:34 to give the Tigers three top 10 finishers.
“Great night by everyone,” said Red Oak coach Sueann French. “Emmanuel had a great race. His first win of the season and Hayden ran really well for third. Osiel (Pedersen) came from pretty far back and passed so many guys to get a top 10 finish. The boys team ran more in a pack and that helped our spread. Times are coming down at the right time. Four weeks until state qualifying.”
Manuel DeLeon added a 31st place showing with Pace Chaillie 47th to complete the Tigers’ scoring.
Creston also grabbed the girls team title with a score of 42. Earlham was the runner-up with 62 points.
Mallory Jenkins ran a 21:31 to finish fifth and help the Red Oak girls to their sixth-place finish in the team standings.
Anna Chaillie was 15th, Gillian Heim was 18th, Leya Walker was 19th and Cate Horn 22nd for the girls.  
“Malory had a great race placing sixth with a big personal record,” French said. “I’m very pleased with how’s she running at this point in the season. She’s learning so much at each race. Anna ran well along with the rest of the girls team. Coach (Weston) Rolenc and I are so proud of everyone.”
The Southwest Valley cross country teams, running in only their second meet of the season in Creston, showed a huge amount of improvement with many positives to build on, according to coach Jason Hults.
“This has certainly been a season to remember, with three of the first five meets getting cancelled due to weather conditions, so it was great to finally get a chance to run competitively tonight,” Hults said. “All the kids were excited to get out and compete against other teams, and we appreciate the effort that Creston went through to set up a new course on short notice to allow the meet to happen.”
Freshman Rylie Maeder finished 39th with a time of 25:23 to lead the Timberwolves in the girls race. October Edwards added a 67th place finish in 35:29. 
“Both girls improved their 5K times from the first meet of the season and as ninth graders are learning the strategies of the high school race,” Hults said. 
In the boys race, freshman Brody Truman led the Timberwolves with a 58th place time of 21:32 in his first race of the season. Uriah Westerhausen added an 88th place finish in 23:59, Henry Means was 120th in 35:54 and Currin Eddy was 132nd in 39:40. 
“Uriah and Henry both improved their 5K times by over four minutes from the first race of the season,” Hults said. “Brody and Currin were running their first races of their careers at the 5K distance.”
Overall, Hults felt it was a good performance from all his varsity runners.
“Everyone improved their times from the first race of the season,” he said. “This should have been our fifth varsity race, but the weather has not been cooperative this season.  The kids have shown a lot of resilience and have had great attitudes all season with the cancelled meets and changes to our practice plans because of the weather.”